Invoking the Bible In the War Debate
Published: January 31, 2003
To the Editor:
Re ''The Prince of Peace Was a Warrior, Too,'' by Joseph Loconte (Op-Ed, Jan. 28):
Jesus never waged war in the conventional sense, yet given the climate of these present times, that is the sense that ''warrior'' takes on.
Much like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mohandas K. Gandhi and Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, Jesus went to his death believing that the nonviolent power of love was the only way out of the cycle of violence.
While we are not yet to the point in human evolution where we are capable of enacting the ethic of Jesus on an international scale (turning the other cheek, loving one's enemies), that is no reason to pretend that Jesus would be in favor of a violent attack.
To do so is to align oneself not with the force of love but with the very darkness that opposes it.
(Rev.) TOM REIBER-MARTINEZ
Summit, N.J., Jan. 28, 2003